Tokyo is an amazing city with tons of different hotel choices. For people who have never visited the city, it can very easily becoming overwhelming trying to figure out where to stay and what to do (what to do is coming soon). Questions you may be asking are: What train line do I want to be next to? How do I get to the hotel from Narita or Haneda airport? Are there western amenities?

With it’s prime location, luxurios rooms. and great price point, the Prince Sakura Tower is my go to hotel for people visiting the city.

Being a 4 star resort, the Prince Sakura Tower wasn’t on either credit card travel site. However, a quick search on hotels.com, and I was able to get the lowest price in 5 seconds.

After comparing my hotels.com price to my hotel website price, both came to about the same cost.

One of the biggest benefits to this hotel is its affiliation with Marriott. By having the AMEx Platinum card, you are automatically qualified to have Starwood Gold Status. With the recent merger with Marriott, Starwood gold members get instant status match with Marriott (which is a HUUGE benefit to Starwood members because Marriott gold is MUCH better). I’ll blog about this at a later time.

Long story short, for $246 a night (with the AMEx Platinum card) , you can stay at a great 4 star hotel with free breakfast, free gym access, free pool & sauna access, C.O. Bigelow bath products, walking garden with Koi pond, and more all in a great location in Tokyo.

Location:

I personally think about location in 2 different ways:

How do I get to the hotel from the airport?

How do I get around the city?

Airport:

When you arrive at Narita (NRT) airport, there are a few different ways to get into the city (cab, train, bus, etc) In this article I won’t go into specifics about the different transportation options, but I will quickly note that my preference would be the Airport Limousine Bus.

There are a dozen or so bus routes that passengers can get on (with various hotels as final destinations). The Prince Sakura Tower is a final destination, meaning you can get dropped off right at the front door of the hotel.

Train Access:

This is one of the biggest reasons I stay at this hotel- the location and train access is fantastic. If you have done your homework, you know that many of the stops you’ll want to visit are along the JR Yamanote line (Shinjuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, etc.) . Shinagawa is one of the main stations on the Yamanote line.

By purchasing the Japan Rail Pass (unlimited travel on JR lines for visitors), you will be able to get on the Yamanote line at Shinagawa and go almost everywhere you want to visit in the city your entire trip with one pass.

Rooms:

The rooms were spacious even for Western standards. We received the best deal getting a room with two full sized beds, so that’s what where we stayed.

The pictures do a good job of showing you the room layout. The rooms were VERY clean. There was almost zero noise from the hallways as well.

The single best feature of the rooms were the showers. There was a large shower with incredible water pressure and temperature (I hate it when my shower won’t get scolding hot).

I definitely took a hot shower then soaked in the soaking tub (it has jets). Very relaxing.

One of the great things about Japanese hotels is that you typically do not need to bring shower products with you. At this Prince Hotel, they give you not only the normal bath products, but they give you a scrubbing towel, hair brush, razors and shaving cream, make up remover, good face soap with lotion, and bath milk just to name a few.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the Sakura Tower is part of a hotel campus with a few other Prince Hotels. In the middle of these 3 hotels (While the other hotels are slightly cheaper, I would not not recommend it…they are dated), there is a very large Japanese garden full of beautiful wooden structures and koi ponds.

Breakfast:

Breakfast at the hotel was great, not amazing (see our upcoming review for the Prince Gallery breakfast….that WAS amazing). There was a nice breakfast buffet, and you are able to order special coffee drinks (cappuccino, espresso, etc) and eggs (eggs benedict, fried eggs, etc.) with the server.

By far the best two things about the breakfast was the eggs benedict and the fruit.

Although the breakfast was great, I don’t know if it’s worth ¥3,900 ($35 USD) per person. If I didn’t have the Platinum card, I probably would have opted to run to the 7/11 for some Onigiris (rice balls).

Staff:

We’re in Japan. They are known for having amazing staff, and this hotel didn’t let us down. Spoke very good English.

Conclusion:

I recommend this hotel to all my friends who ask me where to stay in Tokyo. If you can qualify, I highly recommend signing up for the Platinum Card (you should have one anyways if you travel a lot) for its Starwood Gold Status turned Marriott Gold Status perk. For less than $250 a night, you won’t find a better hotel deal in Tokyo.